I think there is an 11th reason why someone may want to work on near-term causes: while we may be replaceable by the next generations when it comes to working on the long-term future, we are irreplaceable when it comes to helping people /​ sentient beings who are alive today. In other words: influencing what may happen 100 years from now can be done by us, our children, our grand-children and so on; however, only we can help say the 700 million people living in extreme poverty today.
I have not come across the counter-arguments for this one: has it been discussed on previous posts or related material? Or maybe it is a basic question in moral philosophy 101 and I am just not knowledgeable enough :-)
The argument is that some things in the relatively near term have lasting effects that cannot be reversed by later generations. For example, if humanity goes extinct as a result of war with weapons of mass destruction this century, before it can become more robust (e.g. by being present on multiple planets, creating lasting peace, etc), then there won’t be any future generations to act in our stead (for at least many millions of years for another species to follow in our footsteps, if that happens before the end of the Earth’s habitability).
Likewise, if our civilization was replaced this century by unsafe AI with stable less morally valuable ends, then future generations over millions of years would be controlled by AIs pursuing those same ends.
This period appears exceptional over the course of all history so far in that we might be able to destroy or permanently worsen the prospects of civilizations as a result of new technologies, but before we have reached a stable technological equilibrium or dispersed through space.
Thanks, Carl. I fully agree: if we are convinced it is essential that we act now to counter existential risks, we must definitely do that.
My question is more theoretical (feel free to not continue the exchange if you find this less interesting). Imagine we lived in a world just like ours but where the development of AI, global pandemics, etc. are just not possible: for whatever reason, those huge risks are just not there. An argument in favour of weighting the long-term future heavily could still be valid (there could be many more people alive in the future and therefore a great potential for either flourishing or suffering). But how should we weight that against the responsibility to help people alive today, since we are the only ones who can do it (future generations will not be able to replace us in that role)?
Imagine we lived in a world just like ours but where the development of AI, global pandemics, etc. are just not possible: for whatever reason, those huge risks are just not there
If that was the only change our century would still look special with regard to the possibility of lasting changes short of extinction, e.g. as discussed in this posts by Nick Beckstead. There is also the astronomical waste argument: delay in interstellar colonization by 1 year means losing out on all the galaxies reachable (before separation by the expansion of the universe) by colonization begun in year n-1 instead of n. The population of our century is vanishingly small compared to future centuries, so the ability of people today to affect the colonized volume is accordingly vastly greater on a per capita basis, and the loss of reachable galaxies to delayed colonization is irreplaceable as such.
So we would still be in a very special and irreplaceable position, but less so.
For our low-population generation to really not be in a special position, especially per capita, it would have to be the case that none of our actions have effects on much more populous futures as a whole. That would be very strange, but if it were true then there wouldn’t be any large expected impacts of actions on the welfare of future people.
But how should we weight that against the responsibility to help people alive today, since we are the only ones who can do it (future generations will not be able to replace us in that role)?
I’m not sure I understand the scenario. This sounds like a case where an action to do X makes no difference because future people will do X (and are more numerous and richer). In terms of Singer’s drowning child analogy, that would be like a case where many people are trying to save the child and extras don’t make the child more likely to be saved, i.e. extra attempts at helping have no counterfactual impact. In that case there’s no point in helping (although it may be worth trying if there is enough of a chance that extra help will turn out to be necessary after all).
So we could consider a case where there are many children in the pond, say 20, and other people are gathered around the pond and will save 10 without your help, but 12 with your help. There are also bystanders who won’t help regardless. However, there is also a child on land who needs CPR, and you are the only one who knows how to provide it. If you provide the CPR instead of pulling children from the pond, then 10+1=11 children will be saved instead of 12. I think in that case you should save the two children from drowning instead of the one child with CPR, even though your ability to help with CPR is more unique, since it is less effective.
Likewise, it seems to me that if we have special reason to help current people at the expense of much greater losses to future generations, it would be because of flow-through effects, or some kind of partiality (like favoring family over strangers), or some other reason to think the result is good (at least by our lights), rather than just that future generations cannot act now (by the same token, billions of people could but don’t intervene to save those dying of malaria or suffering in factory farms today).
I think there is an 11th reason why someone may want to work on near-term causes: while we may be replaceable by the next generations when it comes to working on the long-term future, we are irreplaceable when it comes to helping people /​ sentient beings who are alive today. In other words: influencing what may happen 100 years from now can be done by us, our children, our grand-children and so on; however, only we can help say the 700 million people living in extreme poverty today.
I have not come across the counter-arguments for this one: has it been discussed on previous posts or related material? Or maybe it is a basic question in moral philosophy 101 and I am just not knowledgeable enough :-)
The argument is that some things in the relatively near term have lasting effects that cannot be reversed by later generations. For example, if humanity goes extinct as a result of war with weapons of mass destruction this century, before it can become more robust (e.g. by being present on multiple planets, creating lasting peace, etc), then there won’t be any future generations to act in our stead (for at least many millions of years for another species to follow in our footsteps, if that happens before the end of the Earth’s habitability).
Likewise, if our civilization was replaced this century by unsafe AI with stable less morally valuable ends, then future generations over millions of years would be controlled by AIs pursuing those same ends.
This period appears exceptional over the course of all history so far in that we might be able to destroy or permanently worsen the prospects of civilizations as a result of new technologies, but before we have reached a stable technological equilibrium or dispersed through space.
Thanks, Carl. I fully agree: if we are convinced it is essential that we act now to counter existential risks, we must definitely do that.
My question is more theoretical (feel free to not continue the exchange if you find this less interesting). Imagine we lived in a world just like ours but where the development of AI, global pandemics, etc. are just not possible: for whatever reason, those huge risks are just not there. An argument in favour of weighting the long-term future heavily could still be valid (there could be many more people alive in the future and therefore a great potential for either flourishing or suffering). But how should we weight that against the responsibility to help people alive today, since we are the only ones who can do it (future generations will not be able to replace us in that role)?
If that was the only change our century would still look special with regard to the possibility of lasting changes short of extinction, e.g. as discussed in this posts by Nick Beckstead. There is also the astronomical waste argument: delay in interstellar colonization by 1 year means losing out on all the galaxies reachable (before separation by the expansion of the universe) by colonization begun in year n-1 instead of n. The population of our century is vanishingly small compared to future centuries, so the ability of people today to affect the colonized volume is accordingly vastly greater on a per capita basis, and the loss of reachable galaxies to delayed colonization is irreplaceable as such.
So we would still be in a very special and irreplaceable position, but less so.
For our low-population generation to really not be in a special position, especially per capita, it would have to be the case that none of our actions have effects on much more populous futures as a whole. That would be very strange, but if it were true then there wouldn’t be any large expected impacts of actions on the welfare of future people.
I’m not sure I understand the scenario. This sounds like a case where an action to do X makes no difference because future people will do X (and are more numerous and richer). In terms of Singer’s drowning child analogy, that would be like a case where many people are trying to save the child and extras don’t make the child more likely to be saved, i.e. extra attempts at helping have no counterfactual impact. In that case there’s no point in helping (although it may be worth trying if there is enough of a chance that extra help will turn out to be necessary after all).
So we could consider a case where there are many children in the pond, say 20, and other people are gathered around the pond and will save 10 without your help, but 12 with your help. There are also bystanders who won’t help regardless. However, there is also a child on land who needs CPR, and you are the only one who knows how to provide it. If you provide the CPR instead of pulling children from the pond, then 10+1=11 children will be saved instead of 12. I think in that case you should save the two children from drowning instead of the one child with CPR, even though your ability to help with CPR is more unique, since it is less effective.
Likewise, it seems to me that if we have special reason to help current people at the expense of much greater losses to future generations, it would be because of flow-through effects, or some kind of partiality (like favoring family over strangers), or some other reason to think the result is good (at least by our lights), rather than just that future generations cannot act now (by the same token, billions of people could but don’t intervene to save those dying of malaria or suffering in factory farms today).